


Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun

by rose_lighters



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crying, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Diego Hargreeves-centric, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not A Fix-It, Not Luther friendly, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Sad, but I don’t give him either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26350711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_lighters/pseuds/rose_lighters
Summary: In this dark prison they had made a corner of the world that was light enough to live in but that light had been snuffed out.They were dead.(Or the one where Five returns to find one less sibling than expected)
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 2
Kudos: 125





	Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title from WHAuden’s Funeral Blues, one of my favourite poems.

**_Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well._ **

**_\- Richard Siken_ **

* * *

  
Pogo wasn’t surprised to see none of the children arrived together. Whilst Sir Hargreeves had acted flippant of them all he had still instructed Pogo to keep an eye out for all of them and he had through the year. He had watched all of them grow and change and become the adults they were. One thing he had not seen was any interaction between them through this time. Since most of them had left at eighteen (except Luther, of course) they had become strangers.

Luther had stayed at the academy, ever loyal as Pogo was. Of course after the incident it wasn’t right to keep him around and so he had been dismissed off the planet in order to collect samples. The real reason for the dismissal was the constant reminder of failure he represented but there was no way that Luther was to know this. Number One always had been too loyal for his own good.

Diego had wrapped himself up in crime for the first few years, joining the police force before leaving shortly after Vanya’s book had been release. Pogo had always theorised that he had been asked to leave due to it but he could never be sure. After a few years as a vigilante Diego had quit that quite abruptly and settled down with a woman he had met on the force. Together they had had a daughter who Diego spent his days caring for.

Allison had similarly had a daughter but her relationship seemed far more rocky. Pogo despaired often at Allison’s lack of restraint during childhood and such unpleasantness had only escalated into her adulthood. She had lied and rumoured her way into roles she was not good enough for and into relationships she had not been ready for resulting in a daughter she could not care for. The court’s ruling had not been kind.

Five had been missing since childhood. Sir Hargreeves had always been sure to say missing.

Vanya’s book had not been to much of a surprise. She had always had a love for the arts as a child and whilst the drugs that she had continued to take had left her dull and depressed they hadn’t effected her ability to spin a story. At first Pogo had been amused by the idea of the book until he read it. He understood that the children couldn’t understand the necessity of Sir Hargreeves’s work but he had not expected the harsh assessment of her siblings too. It became obvious that this was done very much without their permission.

So they had arrived separately and had had the same sort of arguments that they would have had in childhood. It seemed that despite Diego’s new place in parenthood he would always fight with Luther.

Five’s arrival had been a surprise.

* * *

At first he thought he may have miscounted. One. Two. Three. Five (him). Seven. No, not a miscount. Something else perhaps? New power? No, that didn’t fit with any of the others. Not bothering to show? Hmm, more likely but still that didn’t feel right. That was when ice cold dread began to pool in his gut. He’d grieved them all already. He had accepted Six’s loss a long time ago but hope had kept him from completely processing the rest. So the next most obvious conclusion he was too scared to voice.

Instead he demanded coffee.

“So are we going to talk about what just happened?” Luther asked. Okay, so maybe he couldn’t avoid this.

“Where’s Klaus?” Five asked in lieu of a response. Allison, Luther and Vanya shifted awkwardly, exchanging glances that screamed that they’d only just noticed their brother had never showed up. But it was Diego who betrayed the true answer. He bowed his head, looking off to the side with a fist clenched as the silence dragged on.

“Probably just getting high in an alley somewhere, who cares? Look Five it’s been 17 years.” Luther stood up, approaching the time traveler in his usual hulking manner.

“Dee,” Five tried, softer this time. “Where’s Klaus?”

“I-I tried to...to get in c-contact with you all, I tried b-but none of you picked up.” Diego’s voice was thick with emotion. “N-none of you could answer a damn c-call.”

* * *

Diego had fled to Ben’s room. It had always been the biggest of the even numbered kids rooms but also the barest. It was as if their father had always wanted to accommodate the monster before Ben and in doing so had distressed both. Either way it had been the hangout spot for him, Diego and Klaus through their childhood. They had bonded over their numbers at first but then later their understanding that what had been happening was abuse. After all when your brother can speak to the dead he can never truly be isolated from the world. Whilst Luther and Allison both had training they had been manipulated into loyalty by praise, Luther becoming bullheaded and self-assured, and Allison vain and arrogant. Five had always been self motivated enough that their father had tried limiting him unlike the others. And lastly Vanya had been to wrapped up in jealousy to see that their dad was the sole reason for it existing.

Diego had been constantly compared to Luther and told if he pushed that bit harder he’d be number one but it was his love for his mother that had fuelled the anger he held for Reginald. Klaus had been degraded, told he was a disappointment and pushed into drugs under the pretence of training. Lastly was Ben who feared himself enough to do as he was told but understood monsters enough to know their dad was one. Reginald had taught him to contain and control what was inside him, had weaponised what was never a weapon. Before the training began the thing inside him had been docile, only attacking when threatened but just hanging out. The years of being locked away had been the straw that broke it all.

But the brothers that Diego had felt this kinship with were both dead now and Diego was stuck alone with just the memories of the two sweet boys they had been. Being back just made it all the more real. He could almost here Ben’s snickering laughter, so sweet because it was so rare, and Klaus’s dramatic tales and performances that were so embarrassing that Diego didn’t even feel bad about his stutter anymore. In this dark prison they had made a corner of the world that was light enough to live in but that light had been snuffed out.

They were dead.

* * *

Five rolled his eyes when Luther called a family meeting. It was so like Number One to think that a meeting would do anything to hide the fact that he didn’t notice their brother was dead. How could he not notice? Klaus was the loudest and most attention grabbing of all of them. He had probably been to busy making heart eyes at Allison.

If nothing else it was good to see nothing had changed.

“Diego why did you keep this from us?” Five face palmed. Really Luther?

“I didn’t, I literally called multiple times and left voicemails, emails, everything. Not a single one of you answered.” Diego didn’t sound mad, just tired.

Finding him alone in Ben’s room kind of felt like finding their bodies all over again. He had only known it was them because Allison’s tattoo had been showing. At first he had been optimistic because he could only find three bodies, numbers one through three had all been together but the rest were missing, perhaps they were alive. This thought vanished the second he read about Ben in Vanya’s book. He never had found Vanya or Klaus and he know knew why.

Still finding Diego sat lost on Ben’s bed had been harrowing. In all his year at the commission and all he had done to stay alive nothing had ever felt so intrinsically wrong as that sight. He should have had Klaus and Ben there with him. Five tried not to think of all the times he had found them there having fun or comforting each other after training, he tried not to think of how much Diego had looked out for the other two even in the face of his siblings. Like the time Five had given Klaus a biscuit with toothpaste instead of filling as pay back for another prank but instead Diego had knocked it and ate the biscuit with a straight face looking directly at Five.

Five’s childhood was coloured by these moments but that was gone now.

“Diego, what happened?” Five asked, figuring he was the only one who could without getting his head cut off.

“He came to me one night, said he‘d just got out of prison and he didn’t want to go back there. He’d seen some guy on spice bite his own dick off and he told me he never wanted to go that far. It was after I got out of the force but I was still doing the vigilante thing whilst living with Eudora in the flat so I told him he could have the spare room, at day I could help and at night he’d still have someone.” Diego started, his voice low but steady.

“Bullshit, there’s no way he stayed clean!” Luther interrupted. “He was probably just lying and using you.”

“You weren’t there. Trust me, he was clean. These fuckin demons started to appear randomly and things were floating. Klaus was clean and very powerful. Like he was levitating in his sleep, it was mental.” Diego took a deep breath and Five could feel himself do the same. “Thing was there wasn’t a lot of control. The telekinesis and floating he was fine with, he loved it to be honest, and he could materialise Ben pretty regularly.” The siblings all gasped at this. “But these things, the ghosts, they were with him constantly and they screamed so loud you couldn’t think. They loved him because he could see them but they hated him because he was alive and they weren’t,

One night me and Eudora went out, Ben was with him and could generally work the phone even if Klaus was panicking so we thought it’d be okay. B-but...but it wasn’t ok-k-k.” Diego choked on a sob. “We came back and-d, and he just, and he just was lying there. The-there was b-b-blood all over the place. They-they killed him, he-he-his powers k-killed him.”

Five felt the floor go from under him. He didn’t understand. He lay back against the sofa and stared up at the pale ceiling. He studied the way the pattern blended and changed, how it formed monsters and faces and flowers in off-white cream. He saw the patched that were just a bit whiter from old stains being painted over. He saw the way his vision clouded up and how tears made the patterns above seem more like clouds. What he didn’t do was look at his siblings. What he didn’t do was wonder why they couldn’t have picked up.

Five ignored the choking sobs that came out of his body and the tears that stained his cheeks. He ignored the deep ache in his chest and the regret of not having more time with the brothers he’d lost. So Five looked at the ceiling and he stayed there until he couldn’t anymore.

Then he went to Griddy’s and he killed people and he didn’t think about his brothers blood. And he got Diego to pretend to be his dad and he didn’t think about how it was their dad who had killed two of his sons by scaring them enough to do real harm. And he tried to stop the end of the world and he didn’t think about how his world had already ended, about how the floor had disappeared and how they were all now in free fall.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a sad one....


End file.
